User blog:DutchRits/Now THIS is "change you can believe in!"
This post begins my discussion of just how to improve Transformers: Legends by re-balancing the event/episode cards. The previous “Character Card Comparison” posts have highlighted the obvious “deck creep” that has been the standard since the introduction of the events/episodes while also demonstrating the absolute lack of “relative capability” between the character cards. I’ll begin by getting a few common terms & definitions down before discussing the reasons for rebalancing, outlining how to do it, and then stating a few assumptions that must occur for this to be successful. My proposed solution(s), while not perfect, will go a long way towards "fixing" this game. Note: This post is still a “draft,” so I may return with a few edits. Definitions Some of these were defined in earlier posts, but I thought I’d save people having to search. Deck Creep: the constant increase in statistical power for character cards from event to event, beyond the scope of the established non-event rarity tiers. Over time, a player’s Deck Power (DP) must increase to keep up with the growth in boss capabilities which, in-turn, drives the game designers to keep “raising the bar” to account for the growth in Deck Power. It’s a “Catch-22”. Relative Capability: the subjective assessment of a character’s overall power in relation to other characters, based upon canon lore. For example, Bumblebee is acknowledged to be far weaker than Shockwave, but is Shockwave weaker than Grimlock, Megatron, or Optimus Prime? This relationship between characters will be addressed using the tiered stat placement Mobage used for the Common ©, Uncommon (UC), Rare ® and non-Event Super-Rare (SR) cards based off the total of the respective character’s MTM stats as well as the Tech Specs provided by Hasbro for each of the characters in the Transformers Generation One toyline (1984-1986). Finally, some of the relative capability will reflect my own personal bias for/against certain characters. MTM: “Max, Trans-Scan, Max.” Refers to leveling a card to maximum level, trans-scanning it with a likewise-maxed counterpart card (Robot & Alternate cards), and subsequently leveling the Trans-Scanned card to maximum level. Provides the largest stat bonus for a card, and is considered “maximum level.” Tiers: This word has three definitions, based on context. 1) Category of Reward Card, based upon player placement in an event/episode in regards to the rewards as a result of their earned point total. A “Tier 1” player is then one who finished in the “top tier,” earning the top prize of the event/episode, while a “Tier 2” player finishes in the second category, etc. 2) Category of Raid Card, based upon the respective bonus provided for that event. For example, if the attack bonuses for raid cards during an event are x3/x5/x7, then the x3 card is “Tier 3,” x5 is “Tier 2,” and x7 is “Tier 1.” This is an attempt to “match” the Raid Card tiers with the Reward Cards. 3) Stratification of a card in regards to its relationship with other cards of the same type/rarity. This use is based upon my breakdown of cards into “Tiers” based upon their MTM stat totals. For the non-Event SR cards, my Tier breakdown is as follows: a. Tier 1 (28k to 33k): Elite Bumblebee through Skywarp. Personally, I think Prowl should be higher, based upon his rank, Tech Specs, etc. but I get his position here as a “soldier.” And that’s what I view this tier…the soldiers. b. Tier 2 (34k to 37k): Arcee through Elite Ironhide. This would be a “specialist” category, containing those who stand a bit above the regular soldiers. c. Tier 3 (38k to 42k): From 3k below Elite Shockwave through Elite Grimlock. These are the heavy-hitters in each faction; the lieutenants and wannabe leaders that drive so much of the drama. d. Tier 4 (43k to 48k): Metroplex, Trippy, Optimus and Megatron. These are either the biggest, most powerful characters or the leaders of the respective factions. Reasons to Rebalance 1) Deck Power resulting from consistent Tier 1/2 finishes has been demonstrated to be inferior to the use of Episode Raid cards. In other words, even with a deck stacked with UR cards, a player still has to purchase the Episode Raid cards to be able to put out significant damage. If raid cards with the x3/x5/x7/x10 modifiers are required, then there is no sense in continuing the progressively uncontrolled deck creep. 2) Rebalancing the SR cards will put them in-line with the C, UC, R and non-event SR cards from a statistical standpoint. SR cards have a 58,734 MTM point spread from the “weakest” (Evolve Wheelie) to “strongest” (Autobot Ratchet (3)), or a roughly 270% increase in MTM stat total. By comparison, the R cards have a 9,290 spread/162% increase from top-to-bottom while the UCs have a 5,348 spread/167% increase and the Cs have a 3,467 spread/185% increase. Meanwhile, the non-Event SRs have a 20,233 spread/171% increase. In other words, the Event SRs are bloated by nearly 100% more than they should be. 3) Episode bosses are re-tooled each episode to account for the increase in Deck Power as a result of the previous event Raid/Reward/Evolve cards. For example, it used to be routine for a 12k DP player to “one-cube” bosses to the tune of roughly 20 million damage, which was usually enough to take down a Level 3 Tier 3 boss (the second boss of an event). Now 20 million damage is barely enough for a Level 1 Tier 3 boss, and requires not only 14k-15k DP, but a Tier 3/X3 Raid Card. Rebalancing the cards would allow the boss’ stats to be more stable and predictable for the players. After all, a player should feel rewarded that their deck has improved after getting a reward card by seeing improved performance against subsequent event bosses. 4) Failing to rebalance the Event SR cards is punishing the casual gamers. A complete non-Event SR card can take months to draw randomly from the Space Bridge, let alone with their signature weapon. Once attained, they are woefully inferior to even the lowliest of the event SRs. Players should feel rewarded by receiving a non-event SR card in a random draw, not simply see it as an inferior card to be sold or used to upgrade an event card. 5) Damage potential for player Decks is now tiered, resulting in players forced to place in a given Reward Tier simply to maintain their current damage potential. It also prevents newer players from fully participating without dumping boatloads of cash into the game. So in the name of fair competition, it is logical to rebalance the cards. How to Do It I have attached a screenshot of a portion of my “spreadsheet of justice,” since posting the whole thing requires me to create an account on a file hosting site, and passwords, and pop-ups, and malware, and…I just don’t want to do it. I’m examining Harvest of the Insecticons through Robots in the Sky since, like my post before, they are the first three events and feature Rare ® Raid/Reward cards. I have gone through each event to “fix” the SR & UR cards. The spreadsheet is available to those who would like to view it, just PM me with an e-mail address. It’s a work in progress, so it may be a bit messy. If you look at the columns, you’ll see both some familiar and unfamiliar fields. All the data in the "familiar fields" is copied-and-pasted from the card list on this wiki, with me adding data to fields as it becomes available. I then added some fields to establish a percentage comparison, as detailed below. Let’s first define each of these fields, one-by-one, in order from left-to-right. (This is easier if you save the attached picture locally and view it seperately). Raid Cards/Rewards: This is the name of the character card. I apologize if you click on the hyperlink…it’s a picture, so it won’t work. It does in the spreadsheet, though. The second card name is my proposed name, simply to differentiate. I don’t advocate changing all the cards to this name. Faction/Rarity/Spec/Class: Self Explanatory. No change here. For details, see the wiki. Attack Basic ATK: the ATK value of a card when you first receive it and have not yet leveled it up. % of Tot: after totaling up a card’s Basic ATK, Basic DEF, and Basic Health, this is the percentage of the total that is comprised of the card’s Basic ATK value. Max ATK: The ATK value of a card when you level it up completely, but have not yet Trans-Scanned it. % of Tot: after totaling up a card’s Max ATK, Max DEF, and Max Health values, this is the percentage of the total that is comprised of the card’s Max ATK value. MTM ATK: The ATK value of a card when you level it up completely, Trans-Scanned it, and then maximized its level, again. % of Tot: after totaling up a card’s MTM ATK, MTM DEF, and MTM Health values, this is the percentage of the total that is comprised of the card’s MTM ATK value. Defense Basic DEF: the DEF value of a card when you first receive it and have not yet leveled it up. % of Tot: after totaling up a card’s Basic ATK, Basic DEF, and Basic Health, this is the percentage of the total that is comprised of the card’s Basic DEF value. Max DEF: The DEF value of a card when you level it up completely, but have not yet Trans-Scanned it. % of Tot: after totaling up a card’s Max ATK, Max DEF, and Max Health values, this is the percentage of the total that is comprised of the card’s Max DEF value. MTM DEF: The DEF value of a card when you level it up completely, Trans-Scanned it, and then maximized its level, again. % of Tot: after totaling up a card’s MTM ATK, MTM DEF, and MTM Health values, this is the percentage of the total that is comprised of the card’s MTM DEF value. Health Basic Health: the Health value of a card when you first receive it and have not yet leveled it up. % of Tot: after totaling up a card’s Basic ATK, Basic DEF, and Basic Health, this is the percentage of the total that is comprised of the card’s Basic Health value. Max Health: The Health value of a card when you level it up completely, but have not yet Trans-Scanned it. % of Tot: after totaling up a card’s Max ATK, Max DEF, and Max Health values, this is the percentage of the total that is comprised of the card’s Max Health value. MTM Health: The Health value of a card when you level it up completely, Trans-Scanned it, and then maximized its level, again. % of Tot: after totaling up a card’s MTM ATK, MTM DEF, and MTM Health values, this is the percentage of the total that is comprised of the card’s MTM Health value. Totals Basic Total: The total of a card’s Basic ATK, Basic DEF, and Basic Health values. % of Max: The ratio of a card’s Basic Stat Total compared to its Max Stat Total. For Event SR cards, it is almost always in the range of 41-42% of the Max Stat Total. Max Total: The total of a card’s Max ATK, Max DEF, and Max Health values. % of MTM: The ratio of a card’s Max Stat Total compared to its MTM stat total. Interestingly, this stat is almost always 55.55% or 55.56% of a card’s MTM stat total! Or, from a glass-is-half-full perspective, an MTM card is 45% more powerful than a Maxed, non-Trans-Scanned card. MTM Stats Total: (obviously) the total of a character card’s three MTM stats. This is the primary stat from which ALL of my card comparisons are made''.'' So now what? The true comparison lies in seeing the relationship between the Basic, Max and MTM stats of a card, which tells us what “flavor” of card they were looking for. Are they heavy on attack or defense? Do they have an adequate amount of health compared to other cards? More importantly, if we’re going to rebalance the SR cards, we want to maintain the “flavor” of the card and avoid throwing off the relationship between their stats. So any change to the current cards will maintain the percentage for each attribute, but will have the value itself amended based on a change in the MTM stat total. Event Mirage is the first Event/Episode SR card introduced to the game, so we’ll begin with him. His standard array is pretty straightforward…as stated in my post awhile back, his introduction made him the strongest SR card in the game, which from a relative capability standpoint was sure to tick-off Optimus and Megatron. To fix this, we have to begin at the end and work our way back to the individual stats. So let’s start with his MTM stat total. If we reduce his MTM stat total to 38k (I like round numbers…so much easier) we put him into virtually uncharted territory, as no other SR card has a value in that range, yet. However, based on my proposed Tiers, he would be a low-end Tier 2 SR card, behind Elite Shockwave and yet ahead of Elite Ironhide. We could maybe make a case to reduce him to around 35k, which would put him on par with Elite Autobot Jazz, but let’s maintain his position as a “powerful” raid card for this event. If we then work backwards from his MTM stat total of 38k, we get a Max Stat total of 21,110 (55.55% of the MTM Stat Total) and a Basic Stat Total of 8,784 (41.61% of the Max Stat Total). By then applying the percentages from his standard stat array, we are then able to populate the proposed values of his MTM, Max, and Basic stats. In short, he’s still an offensive character (with the fifth-highest ATK total, compared to non-Event SR cards) with low defense and a below-average health total…he’s just not head-and-shoulders above all the other non-event SR cards. And so it goes. I took the liberty of changing the Rare cards, too, in order to fit them into my proposed Rare Tiers. Here is my perspective for how I re-balanced each card: Harvest of the Insecticons Event Autobot Hound: this puts him as a low-end Tier-3 Rare (remember, my Tier structure is reversed from the episode reward tiers…see the definition, above), just barely ahead of Ironhide but behind Soundwave. Event Kickback: the Insecticons were all low-end Common cards, so I applied that logic here. He’s still a mid-strength Tier 2 Rare. Hardshell (1): his color-code is wrong…my bad. He’s a Tier 1 SR card now, ahead of Flamewar but behind Skywarp in capability. Event Sharpshot: the top prize for this event, he is still less powerful than Elite Shockwave yet more powerful than Elite Ironhide and Mirage. You could definitely argue for a lower place for him…say around 34k-35k…but this at least maintains the “top tier reward” aspect. Day of the Dinobots (Part 1) Episode Dirge: this puts him on-par with R Ramjet. Pretty fair, IMHO. Episode Thrust: puts him just below Elite Thundercracker in capability. Episode Sludge: If you go by Sludge’s Tech Specs, he is the second most powerful Dinobot, behind Grimlock. Of course, that’s solely based on strength and endurance. However, he’s not the brightest bulb and, after tallying up his Tech Spec scores along with his fellow Dinobots, he ranks with Hubcap…a minibot. That is to say, he’s one of the worst Autobots, from a Tech Spec stat total. However, this is one of many instances in which Tech Specs are crap, since there is no way Sludge is less powerful than a minibot. So he goes here, where he is more powerful than Bumblebee, but less powerful than Prowl. Episode Snarl: Snarl is actually more powerful than Slug, based on their UC cards, but not by their Tech Specs or with any of the game events/episodes. This placement maintains the earlier UC dynamic, and he's still behind Elite Shockwave. Episode Slug: Slug should be less powerful than Snarl, based on what I said above. This puts him equivalent to Arcee (2). Robots in the Sky Episode Cliffjumper: Ahead of Bumblebee, but behind Prowl. Autobot Jazz (3): A significant upgrade from Elite Jazz, but still below Elite Shockwave. Acid Storm (1): Modest upgrade from Sludge in the previous episode; on-par with other R Seekers, but behind Thundercracker. Episode Sunstorm: Tier 3 Rare now, 900 points over Slipstream. Episode Skywarp: Based on Tech Specs, Skywarp is actually superior to ALL of the Seekers, including Starscream. However, based on his R & Elite versions, he’s actually significantly weaker. We have the option to “fix” that here or maintain the status quo. I’m opting for the latter. This makes him an upgrade over Elite Skywarp but still less powerful than Elite Thundercracker. Episode Thundercracker: I’ve always seen Thundercracker as the “lieutenant” to Starscream, and his relative placement in the R & non-Event SRs validates that assumption. This edit is still a ~4.8k upgrade over Elite version, but he remains behind Elite Shockwave. Summary Fix the cards! Seriously, this is just an example of the work that HAS to be accomplished to return balance to the game. Common sense appears to have ruled in the creation of the C, UC, R, and non-Event SR card Tiers, but is completely lacking with the event/episode cards. I’ve proposed a fix (details for each SR & UR card are in my spreadsheet) but it’s not perfect. It’s a start, though. Assumptions In order for my proposed solution to work, I highly recommend that Mobage follows through on these suggestions: 1) Adjust the stats of ALL event/episode SR & UR cards, as I have proposed. While I have done the math for the Basic, Max and MTM stats for each card, I have NOT broken the stats down to each level of the card. Mobage will have to run the math on that aspect. 2) Make all previous SR/UR cards available for random draw on the Space Bridge via Silver/Gold Warrior medals. Even if the rest of the rebalancing doesn’t happen, this solution just makes sense. The cards are “obsolete” once 2-3 events have occurred, and we already know they aren’t unbalancing to the game. This would go a LONG way towards placating the players who got only one mode of a card in previous events, or got only one mode via Ruby medals (e.g., I got 5x Shockwave Alts in One Shall Fall but no Bot mode). It will also renew the reward aspect of, and excitement over, medal draws. 3) This will make the non-Event SR cards more viable, and thus more likely to be kept in a player’s Base. Therefore, fix the Base section by either: a. Increasing the size of the base and allowing it to hold more cards, especially for the weapons, or… b. Allowing players to transfer their cards into the Cyberdex, where they aren’t recognized by the “Recommend” function for placement and are unavailable to the player for combat purposes until retrieved back into the Base. This could even cost in-game credits based on card rarity, level, and whether or not it was Trans-scanned. (full disclosure: I got this idea from a poster in the forums and I forgot their name. My apologies! But it's a GREAT idea!) Finally… While this post is still in what I would consider a “draft” format, I’ll call my card comparisons done. Please let me know if you see any errors, and I'll correct as quickly as possible. Next time I’ll detail my proposals for some new cards, beginning with Common and UnCommon rarity. Category:Blog posts